


Mister United States Canada Mexico Panama

by VoidofRoses



Series: The Therapy of one Yakko Warner [2]
Category: Animaniacs
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Gen, this poor boy needs THERAPY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27795097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoidofRoses/pseuds/VoidofRoses
Summary: With the success of their reboot, the Warners have been asked to re-record songs from the old series as well as the new series. Pressure mounting, even with Dr Scratchansniff’s assurance, Yakko has an anxiety attack in front of his siblings, something he never intended to ever let them see.
Relationships: Dot Warner & Wakko Warner & Yakko Warner, Dr. Otto Scratchansniff & Dot Warner & Wakko Warner & Yakko Warner
Series: The Therapy of one Yakko Warner [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033521
Comments: 12
Kudos: 425





	Mister United States Canada Mexico Panama

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of Late Night Psychotherapy, same universe. Based ever so roughly on this lovely piece of fan art (https://yes-asil.tumblr.com/post/636044438160982016/its-way-harder-to-relearn-a-song-youve-known-by), I thought it would be fun to continue to write fics for this series. Expect some more in the future :)
> 
> Come find me on tumblr @enbyyakko

Thaddeus Plotz had at the very least tried to sugar coat when they were only wanted as money making objects, Yakko would give the old CEO that when it came to it. The Studio had been struggling then, and now that it had several successful films under its belt ( _Batman vs Superman_ not withstanding) it seemed like the Warners were even less wanted around than before. The reboot was going great - the fans old and new loved it even, despite the trolls - and then Nora Rita Norita had called them into her office.

“It’s come to my attention,” she began, leaning back in her seat and steepling her fingers as they stood in front of her. Yakko looked at both of his siblings and slightly jabbed Wakko in the side for picking his nose - usually the gag would be fine but he figured this new CEO wasn’t as incompetent as Plotz had been. Wakko gave him a half hearted glare out from under his cap before wiping his hand on his jersey, the both of them jolting to attention when she cleared her throat. “It’s come to my attention that you’re gaining quite the following online.”

“Yeah, it’s been great,” Dot said cheerily, taking her phone out of her pocket, jumping onto her desk in front of Nora to show her her following. “InstaGratification is an amazing tool for connecting with fans that instantly tell me how cute I am.”

“TicTok too,” Wakko added, flicking through his own phone. “I’ve got a bet going that I can’t fit a hundred xiaolongbao in my mouth at the same time. It’s gonna be awesome.”

“Except Twitter, we stay away from there,” Yakko said with a wave of his hand. “I was banned after I taunted the President about whether or not Mexico was part of the United States.”

“Yes, about that. It seems as though the board wants to release a CD featuring songs from both your original series and the one that we’re currently filming,” Nora said, picking up and promptly dumping Dot off of her desk, dusting her hands off as the girl scurried back to her brothers. “Which requires updating your _Nations of the World_ song, Yakko. There’s been changes in the last twenty years.”

Yakko felt a cold sweat trickle down his neck. “Update? But it’s fine just like it is, ain’t it? Still getting hits on YouTube and helping kids with geography.”

“Well of course we’ll be keeping the original.” Nora flicked through a stack of papers as she got up from her desk, walking around it, to hand him several pages stapled together. “But you’ll notice Kampuchea is now Cambodia, and several countries named themselves after Yugoslavia split in 1992.”

Yakko wet his lips, finding his mouth a little dry. Of course he knew that - he’d swallowed a tablet containing the majority of the world’s information, which had updated him on the last twenty two years. There was also the Soviet Union that didn’t exist anymore...criminey, how was this going to rhyme?

“Don’t worry about it.” Wakko’s voice snapped him out of his spiraling thoughts, feeling his brother slap him on the back. “He can handle it.”

“Yeah, it’s nothing Mister United States Canada Mexico Panama can’t handle,” Dot chimed in, and while Yakko appreciated his sibling’s enthusiasm for his blabbermouth abilities, he couldn’t help but tremble a little. Nicklewise still taunted him in the back of his head, even with the stronger meds from Scratchy.

“I should hope so. The sound studio is expecting you tomorrow afternoon for a recording session, so remember your lines by then. Or use your motor mouth or whatever.” Nora waved her hand to dismiss them.

“But...”

“If you can’t do it I’m sure we can find someone else to record in your stead. I heard Rob Paulsen was in the area...”

Yakko felt his stomach drop.

“Uhhhh n-no it’s fine, it’s fine!” And now Dot and Wakko were looking at him weirdly from where they were turned and ready to go back to the Tower. Yakko clutched at the papers to stop them from flying out of his hands as he waved his arms. “We’ll be there.”

Nora gave him a raised eyebrow before shrugging and turning back to her tablet, scrolling through her screen. “Whatever. 1pm tomorrow afternoon in the sound studio.”

_Don’t forget, you’re easily replaced._

Yakko rubbed the back of his neck as he followed his siblings out the door, the heavy double doors slamming shut after them through the push of a button on Nora’s desk. He inhaled, exhaled, and looked down at his sheets of paper, thumbing over them as they walked out the building. It would be easy. All he had to do was slip a few (new) countries in between the old ones and keep the tune going.

So why did he feel so anxious about it?

“Yakko.” A blink took him out of his daze, Dot’s hand covering his and he lifted his gaze from the lyrics to look down at the concerned faces of his brother and sister. “You good?”

“Y-yeah I’m good. Why wouldn’t I be?” he scoffed, crossing his arms and jerking them out of their touch, tucking the papers underneath and into his slacks between a few pieces of baloney. “Like you said, nothing Mister United States Canada Mexico Panama can’t handle.” Yakko pulled back his glove and looked at his watch. “Listen, I gotta book it. I have a session with Scratchy, but I’ll be home in an hour. Think you two can hold down the fort without me?”

“Sure.” Dot watched their older brother dash off in the direction of Scratchansniff’s office, Wakko snatching at his lyrics as they floated down from where they’d been tossed and deserted. “Does he seem off to you?”

“He’s been seeing Scratchy a couple of days a week now,” they responded, frowning and looking down at the sheet music to the new _Nations of the World_. At the very least he didn’t have to change a thing about _Wakko’s United States_ , that was for sure. “I’m sure he’d talk to us about it if anything was bothering him, sis.”

Dot pursed her lips together before shrugging and turning in the direction of the Tower. Boys. “I guess you’re right, Wakko.”

* * *

Otto looked over his clipboard where Yakko was breathing into a paper bag that didn’t involve a gag of popping it for once - the boy had burst into his office on their scheduled time and grabbed one from his stash without giving so much as a hello or anything. The weeks since he’d discovered the Warners in his office, Yakko had been fairly nonchalant during their sessions.

This was the first time he’d seen him truly terrified.

He said nothing as he waited for the toon to calm down, listening to the humming noise of the demistifier that Hello Nurse had left before heading off to join Doctors Without Boarders. Yakko, after what seemed like half of their session time, finally calmed down, his shoulders slacking after that last breath. Otto spoke, twirling his pen between his fingers. “Better?” Yakko lifted a hand and waved it in a ‘meh’ kind of way, pulling his feet up onto the therapist chair and draping his arms over his knees. “What seems to be the problem, my boy?”

Yakko watched a bird fly by the window outside before he looked down at his feet, twirling his fingers through the hem of his pants. “They want me to learn a new version of _Nations of the World_ ,” he said a little hesitantly, ears flopping before he motioned a hand in a stop sign as Otto opened his mouth. “I know I know, it should be no problem for me, Mister United States Canada Mexico Panama and all that jazz but, uhhhh, I don’t know so much about that, doc.”

“Is this to do with that Nicky fellow again?” Yakko rubbed the back of his neck, causing Otto to frown in sympathy. “It’s okay, Yakko, you do not have to answer.”

“When...” Yakko took a deep breath and clenched the lap of his pants as he lowered his legs, ears and tail drooping. “When we were created, I always dealt with the script writers and directors. They told me...they always said that we would be scrapped if it wasn’t perfect, that we could easily be replaced.”

That made Otto’s brow shoot up, surprised. Artists weren’t usually so callous when they brought toons to life - many were adored, treated fairly if they were the more benevolent creator. There had been that terrible time in the 1920s through to the 40s where studios would ask for multiple character options, just in case the first option didn’t go according to plan...

Ah, of course.

“And she mentioned getting someone else in to do the song!” Yakko threw up his hands, and the psychiatrist realised that he hadn’t been paying much attention. “I tell ya, doc, that woman is going to give me a heart attack one of these days.” The toon extended his mouth to reach an arm down to show him and Otto cleared his throat, getting his attention.

“No no, no need to show me, Yakko, I believe you.” The arm was retracted to his side and Yakko wrung his hands in his lap, looking down at them. “So Wakko and Dot they do not know about those words that you used to have with the old studio?”

He shook his head. “I kept as much as I could from them. I was created first so I knew what was needed, what would happen to us if...”

And they still got thrown into the water tower.

Otto felt like he could snap his pen in half.

“I will see what I can do about Ms Norita,” he began, watching Yakko’s head lift slightly. “However I do not know how much impact I will have.” The woman had a stubborn streak the size of Slappy’s tail. “Until then I suggest going home and practicing your lines. It doesn’t matter if you make a mistake here or there,” he added when Yakko’s face fell, leaning forward in his seat with what he hoped was a comforting smile. “You don’t need to get it perfect on the first try, Yakko.”

“But I...what if I get tongue tied?” He picked up the pillow on the couch, giving it a squeeze. “What if I stumble during recording and they need to scratch the whole thing?”

“I believe you can do it.”

* * *

Dot looked over from her phone to where Yakko had been practicing his new _Nations_ lyrics since getting home from Scratchansniff’s office hours ago, watching the way he was pacing in front of a world map and holding a pointer in his hand. He rubbed his head every now and then and muttered under his breath, shoulders heaving and raising the pointer to the United States again.

“He’s been at it for a while.” Wakko looked at his sister from where he was draped over the couch, feet on the back and head near the floor. He had successfully put a hundred xiaolongbao in his mouth at once on TicTok and was reveling in the follows and likes since, though now he seemed almost somber as he followed her gaze to their older brother, his hat on the floor next to him. 

“Think we should say something?” she asked, getting off her seat and going over to them. Wakko’s tail swished behind him as he sat up properly, watching Yakko screech and nearly snap his pointer in half.

“No no no! The Caribbean isn’t even a nation, and Tobago is only part of one!” He dragged his palm down his face, then sighed and went to lift his pointer, which at this point was looking like a scraggly stick than a flat piece of plastic.

Wakko started laughing, causing Dot to startle and look at him in alarm, not noticing the way Yakko stiffened. “Look at you getting tongue tied! Who’d’ve thought Mister United States Canada Mexico Panama would trip up like that!” He continued on for a good solid minute before Dot stomped on his foot.

Dead silence drifted through the tower, an icy shiver rolling down Dot’s spine. “...Yakko? Y’good?” She noticed Wakko only now sensing the uneasiness between the three of them, his ears drooping.

“Bro, I’m...”

Yakko inhaled, his shoulders shaking. “Could you two please leave?”

“I was just...”

“I can’t do this right now, Wakko. I just...” Yakko’s arms wrapped around himself. “Please leave.”

“Okay, Yakko. We’ll leave.” Dot tugged on Wakko’s arm, indicating with her head for him to follow her to the next room. She heard a mumbled ‘thank you’ as she opened the door, closing it after them. They’d all gotten a little messed up since Halloween happened, but they were the Animaniacs, they were messed up to begin with! Yakko thought he was being cleaver by telling her his meds were magic pills that only worked for him, but if that was the way he wanted things to be, Dot would let him come to them if he wanted to.

They were family. They’d always be there for him.

* * *

“I really upset him, didn’t I?” Wakko lowered his Nintendo Switch an hour later, not even interested in _Animal Crossing_ as he thought about what he’d said to his brother. His ears and tail had remained drooped and every now and then he let out a whine that startled Dot from her phone.

“Yeah, you kinda did,” she agreed, sitting up in the entertainment couch. She put her phone down, placing her hand over Wakko’s as he did the same with his console. “Wanna go talk to him?” He nodded, letting her take him by the hand and lead him back into the main room.

Which was devoid of Yakko.

Checking the ball pit under her bed confirmed that he hadn’t gone to sleep, when a noise on the roof of the water tower startled them both. Wakko and Dot looked at each other before peeking out the open door and looking up, spotting Yakko’s legs hanging over the edge. The stars and the moon were out, full and beautiful, as the two siblings helped each other get up onto the roof, positioning themselves on either of Yakko’s sides.

There was silence between them before Wakko spoke. “I’m sorry, bro.”

“It’s okay.” Yakko’s voice was hoarse, as though he’d been crying, and when he cleared it, he lifted a hand from behind his head, Dot could see red marks under his eyes in the moonlight. “I let the stress get to me.”

“It’s not okay though,” she said, her voice soft as he joined them sitting up, crossing his legs. “We really hurt your feelings.” Wakko by speaking and her by not telling him to shut up too soon. “Have you been getting any sleep?”

“Kinda. Dozed off for a bit earlier.” Yakko rubbed his cheek, sighing. “I’m sorry, you guys, I shouldn’t have asked you to leave. You had every right to be in the room.”

“No, we should’ve let you practice on your own,” Wakko admitted, leaning his head on Yakko’s shoulder as Dot did the same to his other side.

“We’ll be here when you’re ready to talk,” she added, patting his knee.

Yakko gave her a brief, soft smile before it turned mischievous. “Wanna start a howl?”

Wakko didnt need telling twice - he jumped to stand up and cupped his hands around his mouth, turning it into a megaphone and howling loudly. Yakko and Dot remained sitting, but nonetheless joined in, their own howls different in pitches. Across the neighbourhood, lights turned on as dogs started barking and howling, lighting up Burbank California like a starry sky of its own and the yells of multiple owners echoing among the howls.

They laughed, and Yakko felt his anxiety go away, hugging Dot close.

They’d be there for him, just as much as he was for them. He’d tell them, in his own time, when he felt like they were ready to know just how deep his anxiety went. Later, they’d help him with the tune and new countries and they’d have fun until three in the morning when they’d all fall asleep in his ballpit.

But for now they relished in the chaos below the Tower.


End file.
